Build those stubborn calves!

The first portion of a complete body sculpting routine for men is the upper body routine. Because many men are already comfortable with exercise for this area of the body, it’s generally the part of the body that’s well-defined and toned.

The calf is made of two main muscles, the gastrocnemius and the soleus, nicknamed in some languages “the twins”. They manipulate the Achilles tendon – that’s the big tendon just above your heel, behind the ankle – to produce the movements of the foot and toes.

One of the problems with bodyweight training programs is that your weight can sometimes be too heavy or too light. Take squats for instance. For most people their body weight won’t provide enough resistance to get a good workout within a ‘normal’ repetition range.

Toning is something that both men and women strive to accomplish with their workouts. Women want to tone their trouble areas to create a leaner look that gives them a strong feminine shape, while men strive to tone their larger muscle groups to make them appear more cut and ripped. The best exercises for toning target individual areas of the body, and provide exceptional results at a fast rate.

These exercises for skinny guys emphasize working on the whole body, using compound exercises to build up several muscle groups at the same time. Compound exercises are more efficient in building muscle mass since no muscle group is left behind in the work out.

Another way to tone up and bulk up your lower body muscles is to do dead lifts. The concept is simple. Just lift the weight with both your arms. Dead lifts are a great way to tone your arms, shoulders, chest, back, hips, butts, abs, thighs, calf muscles and everything in between.

One of the best leg exercise that you can do with your bodyweight. This will make you become more stable and challenge your leg strength, endurance, balance and agility. In a standing position, raise one leg out as straight as possible in front of you, and squat down on one leg until your thigh touches your calf.

Not everybody has a jump rope on them right now, but a jump rope can be one of the best weight loss exercises because you use your arms, your calfs, legs, and explosive movements. People who jump rope tend to break a sweat rather quickly, so why not start today and start jumping rope!

Movements that involve deep concentration and create lots of burn are the best leg exercises for women. These include: leg extensions, leg curls, abductors, lunges (side and front), calf raises. Squats and leg presses are popular leg movements, but if you get too over-zealous you might be looking at a larger set of legs or bigger butt.

Studies done at the Baylor University Exercise and Sports Nutrition Laboratory showed that 30-minute workouts raised the heart rate of women and men to about 65 percent of their maximum. Thirty minutes was enough time to improve cardiovascular fitness.

Begin your fitness session with a five to ten minute stretching and warm up, and finish by cooling off for another five minutes. And then in the course of the rest of that session, make your workouts relatively brief. Your standard exercise sessions ought not last greater than 30 to 45 minutes.

The main reason why most people fail to build calves is they simply do not train them hard enough. Think about it. Your calves handle your body weight while standing, running, and walking and doing just about any other physical activity. This means they are already used to lots of stimulation and will only respond to super heavy weights.